By degrees and after a considerable time had elapsed, the moment was opportune for the delivery of Isaac’s message. He had come to request an audience of King Ben-hadad for his master, Naaman. My lord high officer was politely kind. He would see that the message was conveyed to his master, the king, and in the course of a few days an answer would be returned. Although his real errand was now completed, Isaac’s manner was casual and betrayed no haste, after the approved style of Eastern courtiers. For quite awhile longer they chatted with gravity and pretended interest, then they rose, bidding each other farewell with the same elaborate gestures which had marked their meeting.
With a sigh of relief and a complacence born of duty well performed, Isaac and his soldiers took their way homeward and the House of Naaman began that waiting program which was to be its chief occupation for some time to come and of which its master was to grow almost fatally weary before it should be brought to a happy ending. In a few days, as promised by my lord high officer, the watchman stationed upon Naaman’s roof to note the approach of the king’s messenger sent the joyful cry echoing through the courtyards: “Behold, he cometh.”
Instantly the great house responded with a bustle of preparation and a suspension of all unnecessary tasks, giving itself up to the delightful thrill of expectancy. The crowd of mendicants, the halt and maimed and blind, pensioners upon Naaman’s bounty, melted away from before his gate—at the command of the gatekeeper, aided by a stout staff and one or two men servants—like snow before the sun. The courtyards were cleared of all save those whose privilege and duty it was to be there. Isaac, not now in the dress of a soldier but in the soft, fine raiment of a rich man, as befitted the master he represented, met the stranger at the very gateway.
By means of those elaborate bows which had characterized Isaac’s previous visit to the palace, the messenger was finally drawn within the greater privacy of one of the inner courts. This not only shut them out from the gaze and hearing of the curious but conveyed the complimentary impression that he was received into the bosom of the family. His message was brief. On the morrow his master, the king, would give audience to his well-beloved servant, Naaman, at the fourth hour of the day. Yet, however concise the communication, Oriental etiquette forbade its delivery in a hasty manner or without due ceremony. A long time was it before Isaac, bidding farewell to this important guest, was at liberty to pay a scarcely less ceremonious visit to his anxious master and to stand at length, smiling, before Miriam, that she might hear the joyful tidings.
The next day, promptly at ten o’clock, Naaman and his imposing bodyguard of soldiers appeared at the palace. A no less imposing retinue of palace officials and servants, led by my lord high officer, met him at the palace gate and with great apparent respect conducted him to the throne room. Here he and his king exchanged the same elaborate courtesies which had marked the meeting of their representatives a few days before. Yet with a difference! The latter had been coldly formal, meaninglessly polite. This was the greeting of friends, of those whose regard for each other was built upon a solid foundation of respect and affection, although there was not the slightest trace of undue familiarity on the one hand nor lack of dignity on the other.
Salutations concluded, the king commanded all who attended him to retire from the immediate vicinity. Naaman, following suit, gestured to Isaac, and his bodyguard likewise withdrew to a distance. The two highest dignitaries of Syria could now converse in such privacy that their tones alone were audible to those who stood at either end of the long throne room. Impressively yet briefly Naaman recited the facts: it had become known to him, through a maid in his household, that there dwelt in the city of Samaria, in the Land of Israel, a prophet of Jehovah, the little-known God of the land. This seer, it appeared, was a man mighty in word and deed, able, so the maiden stated, to heal even the dread disease of leprosy. Now, therefore, if he had found favor in the sight of his master, the king, he hoped it would please the king to allow his servant to depart in peace upon this mission.
Ben-hadad was gracious. The affliction of Naaman, the man whom all Syria delighted to honor, was also his affliction. Any chance of relief, however remote, must be seized with as little delay as possible. If Jehovah, the God of the Israelites, acting through his prophet, was thus powerful, to effect a cure would be but a small matter and one to be quickly accomplished. He, the king of Syria, would write a letter to the young king of Israel, son of their late enemy, Ahab, which letter should be delivered in person by Naaman. The request therein contained would of course be immediately granted. The affair should take precedence of certain other state business so that, in a few days, the letter should be written and dispatched by messenger to the House of Naaman.
Thus comforted and highly elated at the success of his mission, Naaman and his attendants made the usual elaborate adieux and departed. It was not that an interview between the king and his army’s commander-in-chief was either unusual or infrequent, but this had been fraught with national and international consequence, and ceremony was necessary. Not often did one monarch ask a favor of another without intending to reciprocate, but this visit of Naaman to Israel, with its consequent exchange of diplomatic courtesies, meant a closer alliance of the two nations; a declaration of friendship, as it were, which would last as long as it served their purpose and which might not be a bad thing in these days of Assyrian encroachments.
Miriam, watching the approach of the party from her favorite spot on the roof, observed that the leader lifted his shield of beaten brass and pointed to the distant mountains. She understood. Isaac was telling her that Jehovah, in whom she trusted, had brought it to pass: the king’s answer was favorable, and breathlessly she ran to carry the second message of hope to her mistress.